Think Hong Kong, and you’ll conjure up dense tall-storey apartment living, and a place that’s supposedly changed rapidly in recent years as neighbouring China — which took over the former British colony in 1997 — has wrapped its tentacles around the place.
For Botherway, however, the only oppressive thing about Honkers is the heat and humidity — and that’s just over the three months of summer.
“I think the most surprising thing about Hong Kong is it’s incredibly green — it’s probably one of the greenest cities in the world.
“And three-quarters of the year, the climate is very easy, which allows for a lot of outdoor living.
“Everyone that’s been here with us has been so shocked it’s not what they thought.
“It’s incredibly clean, incredibly safe, but also quite raw and real — not sanitised like Singapore.
“It’s grungy in places, but not grotty.
“I think we’ve assumed in New Zealand it’s where you stop over for one or two nights, and then you fly through — but we’re more than a stopover.”
Botherway says a recent guest, Arrowtown’s Toby Stanley, commented their nearby beaches reminded him of Sydney.
She admits she and her husband Hugh Hamilton — they’ve moved there for his job — are fortunate to be renting in Deep Water Bay, which has been called the world’s wealthiest neighbourhood.
However, they’ve also travelled throughout Hong Kong, and regularly visit its islands during weekends — about 20 of the 250 or so islands are inhabited — “and they’re great places to visit”.
Botherway says public transport is amazing — they don’t need a car — “cheap as chips” and also regular.
“You can catch a mini-bus, a double-decker, taxis, Uber, trams, underground rail and ferries.”
They’ve also found Hong Kong a good jump-off for places like China, of course, but also Nepal, India, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Botherway’s noticed a great contrast between the old and the new — traditional villages but also incredible ‘new’ wealth.
“They still use traditional things like bamboo scaffolding and build these incredible international-level family offices.”
There’s a great range of restaurants, too, Botherway says — “the French are the biggest group of expats, and they bring all their food and wine with them”.
“And there’s no tax on wine so it makes it more reasonable compared to other countries like NZ.”
Speaking of expats, there’s certainly been a large exodus sparked by China’s imposition of a national security law following the massive pro-democracy protests in 2019, and subsequent Covid restrictions — many left for Britain.
For the 12 months from August 2021, for example, 133,000 people left Hong Kong — anecdotally, mostly expats. Those numbers have been largely backfilled by mainland Chinese, who find Hong Kong freer than their home country.
There’s already talk Mandarin will displace Hong Kong’s native language, Cantonese.
In Botherway’s opinion, “the Chinese aren’t stupid, they’re not going to change it, why would they make it just the same as China?”
“It’s a special region, it’s a huge commercial hub.
“We hear anecdotally a lot of people that left and went to Singapore or other places are really keen to come back.”